Leonard Peterson wants farmers to know that if they're wrongly accused of a Swampbuster, a national law prohibiting farm program payments if farmers drain wetlands to plant crops, they might be able to win in court. Peterson was accused of violating the law in 2009, and after two unsuccessful national administrative appeals, he took the case to federal court.
In the end, the court ruled U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service had improperly denied him benefits for converting a wetland. Judge Ralph Erickson, in Fargo said there was "insufficient evidence from which a fact-finder could conclude" that Peterson's scraping of field drains led to an increase in production of crops or "had the effect of making the production of an agricultural commodity possible."